


like the weight of the sun

by theundiagnosable



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Who Christmas Special, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:25:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theundiagnosable/pseuds/theundiagnosable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Involving the eating of a turkey, repeatedly changed futures, a boy made of stars, and an inability to explain Why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the weight of the sun

 This is what he says: "Clara Oswald. I will never send you away again." 

This is the strange part: He means it. 

_____

 

They sit on the floor of the TARDIS and eat, the mostly-whole turkey sat between them like a centerpiece. It's not as terrible as the Doctor expected, this turkey, especially considering its three hundred years in an oven. Slightly crispy, perhaps. 

He takes a bite, and looks at Clara thoughtfully as he chews. She's sat cross legged across from him, and her head barely passes the console. _I like how small she is,_ thinks the Doctor, giving her a contented smile. Portable companions are a good idea, very easy to pull along or even carry, should the occaision arise. 

Clara looks at him bemusedly, like she can hear his thoughts. The Doctor tests this theory by thinking the word "CATS" very loudly; he waits, but she doesn't respond. He's chalking the theory up to "things that probably don't exist for a good reason" when Clara giggles. 

"What?" asks the Doctor, slightly wary - he should have picked a less embarrassing thought. 

"Sorry-" she's still laughing, "I've just realized. You've gotten old." 

"Oi!" He pouts, reaching for his cane and jabbing her in the foot. He almost manages to look angry (but can't quite hide his smile). "Three hundred years after the fact, I think I've aged quite well, thank you very much." 

"Poor baby," teases Clara, "you don't look a day over ninety." 

(this reminds him that his back hurts [and maybe he _is_ getting old], which in turn reminds him of aging, which then reminds him of humans which very obviously leads him back to Christmas)

(and all of this has the unfortunate effect of dulling his mood quite a bit)

He looks at Clara with a heavy breath, wondering what on Earth he's gotten them into. "What now?" he asks, entirely lost. 

Clara frowns, setting her plate down and crawling across the space in between them 'til she kneels directly in front of him. He's still taller than her. She looks at him as though unsure where his concern comes from. "You take me back to Christmas, and we do what we need to do to fix this." 

He'd thought that too, approximately two hundred and ninety-nine years ago. The Doctor shakes his head sadly. "It's not like that, this time. Not one of our adventures."

She does that smile, then, the one where it looks like she knows something that he should have realized ages ago but hasn't. She sounds like it too, when she talks; a slightly incredulous tone, like she's explaining something glaringly obvious. "I'm sitting," Clara says, "on the floor of a space ship, and I'm eating a turkey that's been cooking in the oven of said space ship for longer than I'll ever live. And all of this," she pauses, looking him right in the eye, "I'm doing next to my alien boyfriend of three minutes who's aged three hundred years in one afternoon." 

There are many ways he can respond to that statement, but his brain doesn't quite get past the 'boyfriend' thing so obviously he chooses the one that involves him saying, "Three minutes?" 

"And three hundred years," she amends with a small smile. "But what I'm trying to say, Chin Boy, is that however boring this is to you, every single second of this is more of an adventure than I could have ever dreamed." 

"Clara Oswald," says the Doctor, after a moment of stunned speechlessness, "I don't think you could bore me if you tried." 

and then her face lights up with a huge smile and any resolve he may have had is long gone

(now is when he should be telling her that he will not leave this planet or this war alive again, and that by bringing her along he is condemning her in the worst way possible)

And then she smiles.

And screw it all, he's damned anyways.

_____

 

He takes her hand as they stand in the doorway of the TARDIS, about to step foot on Trenzalore. The Doctor isn't sure if he should be this nervous, but it's sort of like his organs have twisted into knots and ribbons and his hearts are using them to jump rope-

Oh. Perhaps a bit more than slightly nervous. 

As if reading his thoughts (this is happening increasingly often), Clara squeezes his hand and looks at him questioningly; his hearts go faster, _as if that's even possible._

So he steels himself, and grips her hand as they push the doors open and go on to the next impossible thing.

_____

 

The sound of the TARDIS has summoned a welcoming committee, of sorts. They step out of the ship and are surrounded by the locals who bombard him with news of another attack (successfully averted), and then another (smashed a few houses, no casualties); and then he gets the questions of where were you and what's next and who's your friend

and this last one is what makes him realize that Clara is gone. He looks around, peering over heads and through the crowd in a mild panic before he catches sight of a flash of red and can exhale in relief. 

With a murmured "'scuse me" and some well placed elbows, the Doctor manages to get to the back of the crowd and the front of his companion. He smiles at the sight before him: Clara crouches on the ground amid a good dozen children, one of whom, as the Doctor watches, crawls into her lap and sits contentedly. 

And in all of his years here and everywhere else, the Doctor has never been outshone quite so completely. The children meet Clara and within minutes, marveling at their drawings and cooing at their embroidered dresses, she has entirely overtaken him in their affections. They are absolutely charmed by her, and he doesn't know what else he should have expected.

"Are you going to stay here, Miss Clara?" asks one, the little boy who sits on her knee. She bounces him playfully, and amid his high peals of laughter, her gaze finds the Doctor's. 

"I'll stay as long as you need me to." Clara says, and the Doctor knows that she responds to the child but can't help but feel comforted all the same. He shakes his head vigorously, trying to bring himself back to his senses. This is a bad place for her to be. 

He feels a tugging at his pant leg, and looks down. Another one of the children pulls at him and, upon seeing that she has his attention, asks very loudly and not-at-all-subtly, "Are you and her married, Doctor?" 

Clara looks down almost bashfully (that's a first), small smile ghosting across her features. The Doctor starts to stammer an answer when a large crashing sound cuts him off from across the town square. He definitely should not be relieved at the explosion that follows. 

"Right," he says, disentangling himself from the little girl and handing her to her mother, "that is probably bad." Clara stands up, pushing through the rapidly dissipating crowd to stand next to him. 

"What did that?" she shouts, struggling to make herself heard over the sound of firing guns and screams. She looks shaken by the sudden change in atmosphere. There are no children in the square now. 

"Daleks, maybe," the Doctor shouts back, squinting across at the damage before holding a hand out to her. "Shall we?" 

Clara takes it instantly, and manages to give him an encouraging smile. "Let's go save the world," she says, and the Doctor fights the rush of guilt that he feels (he'll have to tell her, sometime) and instead pulls her with him as they run towards the danger.

_____

 

That evening, they sit in front of a fireplace, sharing a patched woolen blanket that reminds the Doctor of fluffy socks. The room is perfectly warm, but this doesn't stop Clara from nestling into his side and leaning her head on his chest.

The Doctor thinks that she's fallen asleep, then the firelight reflects from her eyes and he realizes that she is firstly, awake; and secondly, thinking thoughts that she doesn't enjoy thinking which in turn makes _him_ think that he ought to say something and make it go away 

"What is it?" he asks, jostling her gently.

Clara shakes her head, frowning slightly. "They're still out there, those creatures. They can come back any time they want." He looks at the ground, and Clara presses on, comprehension dawning in her voice. "And you're okay with that. Why are you okay with that?" 

and this is the bad part, the part where he has to tell the truth. 

It feels like a disappointment, when he gets the words out. "There's no saving the world, Clara. Not this time." This is the best he can dare to hope for, moments of reprieve amidst the constant barrage of attacks. The Doctor continues dejectedly. "All I can do is help them last as long as possible. After that... you've seen my grave. You know the end. There is no winning this war."

She shakes her head determinedly, like she hasn't quite heard him, or at least is trying very hard not to. "We'll find a way. We always do."

The Doctor lets himself stare at her for a long moment, and pretends like her being here will change everything (it already has) and that in the morning they can save the world and leave his grave behind and fly off to enjoy a million more Wednesdays-

it's probably Thursday, by now, on earth

-"Alright." he says softly.

and oh look. 

she's fallen asleep

_Humans,_ he thinks fondly - but no, that's not quite right, not exactly the word he was looking for. He casts around in his mind for the elusive word, and is surprised by how easily it rises to the forefront of his thoughts

(it was already there, of course)

_Clara,_ he thinks, then again and again. _My Clara._

And it's almost like dreaming.

_____

 

That morning, the Doctor extracts himself from the sleeping Clara's grasp and goes to visit the crack in the wall. It has not changed in all the years that he's been here, and he wonders, not for the first time, what he is really protecting.

He could swear that he hears whispers. Like always, he tries to listen, to make out some definable word or phrase amid the mutterings that border on being incomprehensible. He thinks he catches a hissed "doctor", but it fades before he catch the rest. Then,

"it will not last"

and the Doctor stares intently at the crack in the wall. Had he heard a voice? Was it his own thoughts? The whispers fade back to their usual indeterminable babbling, but the Doctor steps closer to the wall, extending a hand as if to reach in and-

"Morning." Jolted out of his reverie, he turns to see Clara descending down the final steps and examining the room curiously. "this your new hiding place, then?" 

"And you found me anyways," the Doctor quips back.

She yawns, blinking sleep out of her eyes. "'Course I did." She moves to stand beside him, staring at the fault with a sort of disinterested fascination. _She can't hear the whispers_ , deduces the Doctor. "D'you come down here a lot, then?" 

"Three hundred years," he explains, "I've probably developed a few habits." 

The expression on her face has changed, it's less casual now. She hasn't fully realized how much time has passed, for him. How long has it been for her? - mere hours.

She looks at the crack of light and bites her lip. "Hasn't changed much in three hundred years, has it?." 

He tunes out the whispers, looking at Clara beside him. "Not much does, here." 

Perhaps sensing the change in his voice, Clara faces him, reaching a hand up to cradle his face and run a thumb over the lines on his cheek. She looks at him with a compassion that is, frankly, rather alarming, or at least should be. This is the part where he should pull away, so predictably, he instead chooses to look at the curve of her bottom lip as she speaks. 

"I suppose," she says, quiet like she'd stopped halfway to a joke, "that for three hundred years in one body, you're looking quite good." 

“For one afternoon," he says, "you've aged horribly." 

Gasping in feigned offense, Clara jabs his nose and tries to look intimidating while standing almost a foot shorter than him (it works). "I take back what I said," she chastises, "you look positively ancient. A million years old - no, a billion." She narrows her eyes mischievously, and the Doctor grins.

"That's a fairly tall order, even for me." 

Her hand suddenly feels like fire on his skin, and he is painfully conscious of how young she is and how old he has begun to look.

It's funny. She doesn't seem to mind. 

"Well then," Clara almost whispers, "I've got some catching up to do." 

She is so eager to throw her life away for him, willing to stay and age and while away the years. And, realizes the Doctor, perhaps it is this that has been nagging at the back of his mind. It is so easy for her to stay, and so easy for him to let her. 

A long time ago, when he was young and stupid – or, at least, younger and more stupid than he is now – the Doctor had thought that if two people were meant to be, they just... would. He'd been proven wrong over and over, of course.. And yet, somehow, on the threshold of what he thinks might just be a life with her, the Doctor begins to believe it again.

and he is the last Doctor and she is the only Clara and none of this is worrying him quite as much as it should

It all feels very normal, and it keeps feeling normal when he bends down or she leans up and their lips meet like it's the most natural thing in the world. 

(and he wonders when they slipped into this most casual sort of intimacy, where he sees her and thinks, _Oh._ _Hello. I have been waiting for you my whole lives_ )

When she pulls back, Clara's eyes are wide and she looks like she can't quite decide on what to say. The Doctor wonders if this is supposed to happen, this kissing thing. It seems to have short-circuited his brain.

"Yowzah," he says pathetically, and instead of making fun of him, Clara nods dumbly.

"Yeah," she says breathlessly, "yowzah."

It sounds funnier and a million times more beautiful when she says it, so the Doctor laughs and then she does too and they both dissolve into fits of slightly nervous giggles.

"This was a strange place for kissing," decides the Doctor, once he's recovered a little. He looks around the dingy basement, at the gateway to his not-dead planet, at the plethora of discarded items either left by him or the previous users. A half-finished wooden horse catches his eye, and he makes a point to finish it sometime soon. "Sorry. Rubbish place for a first kiss." 

"Exactly the reaction every girl is hoping for," deadpans Clara, and the Doctor presses his forehead against hers with a giddy laugh, spinning her around. He wonders what would happen if they weren't on this planet.

"I like saving worlds with you," he blurts. "Also kissing. Would you like to do it again? Not the world saving. The kissing."

Her eyes hold a laugh. "Yes." says Clara.

And the Doctor decides that, for the next few minutes, he will allow himself to forget that they will not save the world. He takes the steps two at a time and feels hopeful

and he will never learn, will he?

"Doctor!" They manage to make it halfway up the staircase before they are interrupted by a scattered banging on the door and the top of a head visible through the cracked pane of glass. "Doctor," comes the panicked voice of a child, "the sky's lit up again!" 

The Doctor exchanges a glance with Clara, then makes himself pull away. He tries to seem as in control as possible (complete and utter lie, as it happens), and opens the door with calming words and requests for more information. With a single look upwards, it becomes evident that another attack is being launched. He sniffs the air. Outdated technology. Doesn't make it any less devastating.

On the bright side, he can sort of see the sunrise from here. 

"Right," he says briskly, "Clara, you bring Hana and the other children to the basement. Anyone else who wants to come as well." Without question, Clara holds out a hand to the little girl, and heads off to bring the other children to safety; leaving him to fend off a fleet of heavily armed ships. 

It's easier with her here. Then, what isn't?

_____

 

Why: 

Because she makes him believe that, purely through her presence, their first day on a doomed planet is a new beginning.

_____

 

In the days that come, they cobble together the bits and pieces of themselves into a sort of life; then, in the days that come after that, it begins to feel like it's the only life he's lived. 

They are on a planet under siege, and not a day goes by when one or both of them doesn't come within a hair's breadth of dying or worse. Other than that, though, things are surprisingly not-horrible. 

Clara watches the sunrises with him; he has to admit that she's better company than Handles. They spend their mornings on the roof, and their days running around sort-of-saving the place, and their nights in the house that he supposes is theirs. She sleeps pressed into his chest, fitting him like a puzzle piece; the Doctor stares at the ceiling or at the fireplace or at her and watches the time tick by, second by second. 

She tells stories to the children, serial tales that she spreads across multiple nights. It becomes common for either of them to open the door at night and find a patient audience awaiting the night's chapter. They favor a character that she invents, a boy made of stars. The Doctor listens to these stories as well, because this character seems quite familiar, in a marvelously made-up kind of way. 

So she tells stories. He takes up toymaking (and he really should get around to finishing that carved horse). Somehow, she continues making souffles - so maybe some things really don't change. 

In the days that come, he feels like they could go on like this forever, and he wouldn't mind at all. 

He does not visit the TARDIS, though he suspects that Clara does. She's always been stronger than him - The Doctor walks past his ship and avoids looking at her, because if he did he'd start thinking something like _run_. 

_____

 

“Cool is not cool!” calls the Doctor, unsure if he's heard over the music and unsure it matters. “You've got to be the drunk giraffe!” 

The children copy his moves, jumping spastically to a rhythm that doesn't quite match the song that's playing. He supposes that this is among the bright sides of living in constant danger, these parties that could be anyone's last parties and dances that probably are someone's last dance. They don't seem to mind his dancing here, which is nice, at least. 

The high peals of Clara's laughter reach him over the crowd, and the Doctor turns in time to see her almost doubled over at the sight of his completely _awesome_ dance moves. With a grin, he withdraws from the circle of dancers, using his walking stick to clear a path to her. (She always jokes that he shouldn't be trusted with it, says he's too clumsy.)

He holds out a hand, inviting her to dance, but before she can take it, someone passes a parcel into her outstretched hand. Clara looks at the brown paper package, then at him, confused. The Doctor shrugs, and turns to the woman who passed it to her. 

The woman smiles warmly. “You've done so much for us since you've arrived, we all wanted to thank you. Your one year anniversary here seemed like a good time to do it!”

The Doctor freezes. 

That's not possible. 

He tries to count the days on his fingers, and thinks his hearts will leap out of his chest when he runs out of digits. It's not possible – they've only just arrived. It can't have been a year already, impossible. (and it's funny: a year has always seemed to the Doctor to be nothing at all; certainly nothing worth worrying about.)

(and a year, he realizes, could have been all the time in the world, once it's gone.)

The ripping of paper startles the Doctor back into awareness of his surroundings, and he stares wordlessly as Clara pulls from the present an intricately embroidered dress, much like the ones that the locals wear. 

“Oh,” she says, running a finger over the images in the thread, “oh, this is just...” 

And it is, it really is. 

_A year,_ thinks the Doctor, and is surprised by the sudden urge to toss the dress into the snow. 

____

 

Y _ou make normal time feel not boring_ , he thinks, and adds that to his list of reasons Why.

_____

 

She cries, that night, tears soaking into his shirt and betraying her silence. 

“Hey,” the Doctor says softly, trying to comfort her. Then he says it again, “hey,” because he is entirely at a loss as to what else he can do. He pets her hair pathetically, enfolding her in his arms. 

“I'm not even sad,” she says through a sob, “It's been a good year, with you and me, like this.” She sniffles, attempting a smile. “Really. I don't know why I'm crying.” 

“Because it's gone,” supplies the Doctor helpfully. She starts crying harder, though, so perhaps he wasn't as helpful as he'd hoped. He frowns. “I'm still here, though. If that's any consolation. “

“It is,” she says, “It is. I don't know why I'm crying.” 

“I'm not even sad,” she says, then starts crying all over again. 

He holds her, and wonders how many years they have left. 

_____

 

When the Doctor sleeps – very rarely - he dreams. 

"Will you be there 'til the end of her, Doctor?" asks Amelia, and then she blinks and is gone and Clara is smiling up at him, "Rescue me, chin boy, and show me the stars." But her voice takes on a terrible metallic edge and then he blinks and she's gone too.

And when he wakes, the Doctor pulls Clara close and does not let go for a long time.

He measures the weeks in times they don't die and the nights in breaths she takes.

He loses count of both.

_____

 

Perhaps the whispers are getting louder, or perhaps he's just listening better - whatever the case, when the Doctor stands in front of the crack in the wall, he definitely hears a voice.

"How much longer, Doctor?"

He reacts faster, this time, pressing close to the wall and staring searchingly into the light. "Who's speaking? How much longer for what? Tell me-"

"Change it-" says the voice, but it sounds far away, as though it's speaking from across a great valley.

"Change what?" asks the Doctor urgently, despite a dawning feeling that it's hopeless. "What do I change?" 

He waits. 

No response. No - whomever he speaks to has gone.

"Curiouser and curiouser," ponders the Doctor thoughtfully, taking a few steps back from the fault. 

_____

 

One night, after they have been there long enough to see the death of five races and the arrival of seven new ones, they sit on the porch wrapped in a patched blanket. No children run around outside. They've been born and raised during the seige, though, so it's not a loss to them. Is it still a loss if you don't know what you're losing? It probably is, decides the Doctor, but he's got quite enough to feel guilty about, Thank You Very Much.

The snow is falling slowly. 

"What do you miss?" asks the Doctor conversationally.

Clara seems to think carefully about her answer. "My family," she says, "but that's not a new one." Then she almost smiles. "It's odd," says Clara, "I miss the strangest little things. Like... like rain." 

"Rain," echoes the Doctor bemusedly. 

"Yes. Sometimes I'll dream that I'm going about my life, just ordinary days, and it's all absolutely the same as when I'm awake, only there's rain. And when I wake up, I listen for the sound and all I can think is how... how quiet it is." 

There's a silence, after that. A big one, thinks the Doctor, the sort of silence that settles over your shoulders and doesn't want to let go. Lots of things are unsaid in those kinds of silences.

His words trip over each other. "Do you regret coming here?"

"No." She answers immediately, like she's thought about it a lot. "I don't think so." 

They exchange a glance, and the Doctor feels, in that moment, very human.

He turns where he sits, shrugging off the blanket and clasping her hands in his, looking at her imploringly. "How am I ever supposed to thank you for what you do? How could I even begin? I wish that I was better at saying-" he cuts himself off, frustrated by his inability to effectively communicate just what she means to him

(it's everything, of course)

"At saying why... why I..."

A moment passes, full of anticipation that eventually dissipates as Clara sighs, but not like she's really mad at him. "Tell me about it."

_Why: You are more than I could ever dream of deserving._

A silence settles over them - a comfortable one, this time - then she glances toward him curiously, like a thought's just occurred to her. "What do you miss?" 

The Doctor looks at her, and wonders if she knows that she's the only thing he has left to lose. 

"Jammy Dodgers," he says decisively. "Haven't had one in ages." 

_____

 

The Doctor walks into the house especially late that night, covered from head to foot in soot from a fleet of exploded daleks. He has every intention of heading straight to the washroom and then to bed. He expects that Clara's asleep already; she tries to wait up for him, but ends up dozing off out of sheer exhaustion. 

Then he hears her voice. 

“...and then, with a massive roar, the planet that wanted to eat the universe burst into a million different pieces.” A chorus of gasps follows her words, and the Doctor peers through the doorway to see Clara sitting in her favourite armchair with what must be every child in the town sat cross-legged at her feet. Clara's back is to him, so the Doctor slips into the room and leans against the wall, listening as she continues with her story. 

“And there you have it. The boy made of stars saved them all, every last child in the whole wide universe. And he did it all with a story, imagine that!” She leans back in her chair, satisfied, but one child narrows his eyes and sits up. 

“But what happened next?” he asks, “You haven't told us the ending.” 

Clara laughs. “It hasn't ended yet, has it? The story's still going. And you know what?” She pauses, listening to the eager demands, and waits until the room falls quiet. “We're all in that story, right this minute.” She finishes with a slight flourish, and the Doctor can see why her stories are so captivating. She tells them as if they're real. 

He listens to her, completely enraptured, and can almost believe that, through her words, the boy made of stars becomes real.

_____

 

One morning, Clara has the rare luxury of sleeping in, and the Doctor does not want to disturb her so he stays perfectly still and watches the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. He takes in every detail of her, reverently, almost studiously. Her hair falls in front of her face, moving each time she exhales. He likes her nose. It's cute.

This is when he notices the lines at the corners of her eyes.

_____

 

She finds him in the TARDIS, skulking around the console and drumming his fingers on the levers longingly. 

"Thinking of running off again?" asks Clara; and he can feel the TARDIS hum under his fingertips, like she's contemplating waking up.

The Doctor shrugs as Clara slips between him and the console, leaning against him. He supports her weight without much effort. "Considering it." 

He smiles, but it's tinged with sadness, and Clara nestles closer to him. From behind her, he wraps his arms around her obligingly, and she looks up at him. He rests his head on top of hers. "How did we end up here?" the Doctor says thoughtfully. 

It is very obviously a rhetorical question, but Clara answers, regardless. "Well," she says, "if I remember correctly, you showed up under my window and said you were guarding me then asked me to run away with you." She turns around so that they are facing each other, and meets his eyes with a hesitant smile. He returns it, taking both of her hands in his. ( _how has he not noticed the wrinkles on the backs of her hands?_ )

"Was that how it went?" He asks, lacing their fingers. 

Clara nods playfully, voice still hushed. "Give or take a couple of murderous robots, yeah."

The sound of the murderous robots from outside reaches both of them at the same time, and the Doctor can't decide if he wants to laugh or cry so he holds her hands in his, and closes his eyes tightly as the metallic cries come closer. There's a dreadful sort of irony to it all. "Look how far we've come." 

"You aren't at my window this time," Clara says helplessly, clearly trying to distract him from what they both know comes next. "That's always a plus."

It seems like he can't help but smile, and, for her sake, makes an effort to keep it there. _How did we end up here?_

He'll always have something to feel guilty about, it seems.

The sounds from outside grow louder, and he knows that they'll have to go fend off whatever attacking creatures are coming for them now. He wonders absently if he could convince her, now, to leave. It's not too late for her, yet. ( _it was too late from the moment they met_ )

Then Clara speaks.

"I was going to get old," she says, "anywhere." He looks at her, unsure where she's going with this. She continues, "And if I was going to end up some place, well, here with you seems as good as anywhere to me."

He kisses her, then, and she rises up on the balls of her feet to meet him. Their hands are still connected - he can feel her pulse. They fit together, familiar and clumsy all at once, and he thinks that, yes, dying for this won't be so terrible.

The ship shakes as something collides with it from outside, and the Doctor tenses, pulling back from Clara and glancing to the door with dread. He meets her eyes, and finally disconnects their hands, brushing her hair behind her ear. He knows that she feels him trembling, even after all this time. 

Reaching up, she straightens his bowtie, like these little rituals will protect them from whatever lies ahead.

(Then again, he muses as they leave the ship, they've lasted this long.)

_____

 

Why: 

Because of windows and kisses and _ending up some place here with you_

_____

 

The days seem to go a lot faster, after that – you'd think he'd have learned how to fix that, by now.

This much he knows for certain: He is the last Doctor. All things considered, he is probably coping with this quite well (and really, the fact that he's been hoping for and tempting death near-consistently throughout the past millennia is only a small part of that). 

Another near certain fact is this: She is the last Clara. There are echoes, of course - but they are not her. No one is, or will be ever again. 

A pair of lasts, they are. 

And so the Doctor, upon further reflection, decides that facts, no matter how certain they may be, have never influenced him before and will not begin to now. He dismisses reality as unnecessary and pretends that they will last forever.

_____

 

“Please,” hisses Clara, “tell me that you've got a plan.” 

The Doctor peeks over the edge of the wall that they're currently hiding behind, and catches a glimpse of the cybermen that are currently searching for them. 

“A plan,” he says, “would be excellent right now.” 

She stares at him flatly. “You've not got a plan, have you?” 

“Not in the slightest,” says the Doctor, and flattens against the wall as a searchlight shines over their heads. His mind races, thinking through strategies and dismissing them as impossible in the same instant. _Not here,_ he thinks, _not like this._

The section of wall to their left explodes with a sudden bang, and he instinctively tries to shield them from the falling debris. They crawl blindly, trying to get away from the growing flames. 

“Hand-held explosives,” he tells her. “They're throwing them – they know we're here.” 

“What can we do?” she asks, coughing on the dust from the destroyed wall. The Doctor does not respond, eyes clenched shut as he tries to think a way out of this one. He can hear the cybermen marching stiffly, though none of them speak. They'd been walking past the graveyard, him and Clara, just a routine lookout. It'd been almost pleasant, a perfectly peaceful night until the cybermen came to try and blast their way in to the bloody crack in the wall. 

The Doctor sighs, shaking his head and feeling his pulse thundering in his ears. “Oh,” he says, “I'm getting to old for this.” 

The wall to their other side explodes, then, and Clara cries out in fear, clinging to his arm as they duck to the ground. Something about this, her, here, is inherently wrong. Clara is not supposed to be on a battlefield – she is no warrior. 

He wasn't a warrior, either, once. 

He feels something on his arm, looks down, and sees Clara hold a hand to the side of her head and bring it away thick with blood. 

_Not her,_ thinks the Doctor.

_Clara is not supposed to be on a battlefield,_ thinks the Doctor, and things take on a dreadful sort of clarity. He stands, clearly visible from behind the short brick wall, and aims the sonic at the cyberman in front of the group. They have a hive mind, he recalls, and they have explosives that produce a relatively isolated blast – not a good combination. 

The Doctor crouches back down and covers his ears as, all at once, the cybermen receive a transmission that detonates their bombs, but does not throw them.

The light from the resulting explosion illuminates the whole graveyard. 

The Doctor hardly notices this, kneeling in front of Clara and gripping her face in his hands. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, and she has to respond several times before he can hear her answer. 

“I'm alright,” she says, over and over, “head wounds always look worse than they are. I'm fine.” 

He stares at her, blood pounding through his veins. “Clara,” he breathes, and then pulls her to him fiercely. He will never fully realize how fragile she is, how entirely breakable. "Oh, Clara," he gasps, clutching her to his chest and burying his face in her hair, "how am I ever going to live without you?"

And in that moment, seconds after he thought he'd lost her, the Doctor does not know. 

A Fun Fact: He never will. 

(she's like glass, in his arms.)

_____

 

He grabs her hand, one day, to pull her up the stairs to catch the tail end of the sunrise, but she resists, looking at him gently but firmly and gripping the hand rail to support her weight. "Slow down, Doctor."

He remembers when she told him to run.

_____

 

Time passes, for the Doctor, not in seconds or hours or years but in moments. He thinks back and sees shining memories of the way Rory would roll his eyes or Rose would hold his hand; scattered like stars, without rhyme or reason across whatever galaxy his mind has become. Like stars, he thinks, his friends and the moments that they give him, thousands of years worth. 

And Clara - why, she's like the sun in the middle, lighting the whole place. 

(children, he knows, are told not to look at the sun or they'll go blind)

(he can think of worse sights to stop seeing for)

_____

 

“The people on the planets would always reach for him, this boy made of stars. He'd even visit with them, sometimes. But no matter how hard they tried or how fast they ran, they could never quite catch him.” 

“How fast did he run?” 

Clara smooths back the hair plastered to the child's forehead, pausing to feel his temperature. “He ran,” says Clara softly, “so fast that it was as if he'd never stop.” She pauses, looking at the little boy whose eyes are now closed. Clara blinks back tears. “And so they grew up, these people who reached for the boy made of stars. They grew up and grew old, and so did their children, and _their_ children after that. And they never managed to catch him – but, and this is what they don't always remember – the boy made of stars was always there. He never fully left them.”

“He got old too.” 

“No,” Clara says, and her voice is like a spark. “No, he didn't. Because that's the magic of it all, isn't it? They all grew up, and they all kept reaching, and he was always there, shining just as bright as the day he'd begun. And y'know what?” Her breath catches in her throat, and her voice breaks. “I think he might just be there forever.” 

The little boy's face drifts into a lazy smile, eyes still shut. Though he can't see her anymore, Clara bites her lip, trying to hold back tears. 

Sitting on the other side of the dying boy's bedside, the Doctor thinks that failing will never get easier, not when lives like this are at stake. _(How much more can he take?)_ But then he thinks that there are, after all, worse ways to die than a story from a Clara. The boy would agree, judging by his last request. 

Unsurprisingly, this does not make the Doctor feel very much better. It's challenging, even after all of these years, to find a bright side in the loss of one so innocent. 

It's not something he can get used to. 

_____

 

(He's always thought it funny, the idea that humans have of growing old together. Mostly because, well, they don't get old at all. What could their lifetimes mean, started and over in the blink of an eye?) 

One day, Clara holds her hand up to his, pressing their palms together and looking at the lines on both.

“Look at that,” she says, fascinated, “we match.” 

( _Everything_ , he realizes. _Their lives mean everything._ )

_____

 

It's almost unsettling, when he visits the crack in the wall. The Doctor wonders if the Time Lords know how much trouble they're causing. 

“Change it,” the whispers say, but the Doctor scarcely pays attention anymore. He's almost convinced himself that the words are a figment of his imagination. Even if they aren't, he's got too much on his mind to be concerned with their infernal whispering. For years now, only the two same words have been repeated, as if on a stuck record. 

The basement is dark, save for the light from the crack. It casts shadows around the room, leering at the real Doctor alone in the center. It's an awful lot of time energy. 

The Doctor pokes the edges of the crack with his cane, bored. He contemplates tossing his cane into the nothing so that it will never have existed. Then, feeling suddenly as through he's teetering on the edge of quite an important thought, he looks at the walking stick, then at the crack, then back again. 

Like it will never have existed. 

And, he thinks, looking at the glowing crack with the sudden swellings of an idea, that is an awful lot of time energy.

_____

 

She's humming her way around the kitchen, tossing things into bowls and whisking them with a vigour that has yet to be dulled by the slowly mounting years. 

He broaches the subject delicately. "Do you ever think about going home?" 

At once, Clara sets the bowl down and glares at him. (So perhaps not as delicately as he should have.)

"What've you done?"

"Nothing!" He protests, holding his hands up in surrender. "Why do you always think I've done something?"

Clara narrows her eyes, pointing the whisk at him in a decidedly threatening way. "Don't lie to me." 

The Doctor retreats to the opposite side of the counter. "I haven't even used the TARDIS. I couldn't have done anything." She stares at him suspiciously for another moment, then returns to her mixing. He leans on the counter and watches her. 

"Should I-"

"No." She cuts him off curtly, but her features stay set in a pout. 

"Are you su-"

"Yes." The Doctor decides to take the hint and shut up, then. Clara seems prepared to work in silence, but speaks suddenly. She sounds troubled, like she's just thought of something unpleasant. "Do you regret bringing me here?"

He contemplates lying, but knows that he is transparent in front of her. "No," he says carefully. "I don't. Not one second of it. But I think I regret what comes next."

She softens, then, pouring the batter into a pan and determinedly not making eye contact. "You lived without me for more than a thousand years. I'm sure you'll adapt." 

He shrugs, and responds not-quite-casually, "I had the advantage of not knowing that you existed."

She slides the pan into the oven, and for a while, the only sound is the ticking of the timer. She crosses the small kitchen, standing beside him. He pulls out a chair and helps her into it, and they keep their hands connected automatically. 

"If our lives lasted longer," Clara asks, staring up at him "do you think it would make a difference? Would things be easier?" 

The Doctor laces their fingers. "I don't think it's the length of the life that makes things difficult. It's the leaving it."

_____

 

Why: 

Because of _life_ (and he has underestimated these humans and their beautiful boring passing of the days).

_____

 

People who were young when Clara arrived begin to die. This terrifies the Doctor, so he does the logical thing and brings her to watch the sun go down.

It occurs to him that she thinks she looks old.

"You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen," says the Doctor, and Clara looks at him like she wants to cry. He tilts his head questioningly. "What?" 

She shakes her head, opening her mouth to speak but seeming to lose the words halfway there. The first strains of a song float up from the square below as the night's celebration begins. Clara closes her eyes, nodding to the music. Leaning his cane against the side of the balcony, the Doctor extends an arm and bows exaggeratedly. 

"May I have this dance?" 

She giggles, placing her palm in his and letting him pull her into a slow almost-waltz. She looks up at him, and he sees something change in her eyes. "You still look the exact same as the day you brought me here." Her voice sounds like she's amazed, and she reaches up to lay a hand on his cheek. Her fingers feel frail. He pretends not to notice. She smiles wistfully. "Like nothing's changed at all." 

The Doctor wishes he could make time stand still, freeze this one second so neither has to go any further into what lies ahead. 

"Y'know," he says softly, "the old girl's still here. Whole universe at our fingertips. Fancy a week in ancient Mesopotamia?" 

Clara's grin matches his, and she plays along. "Will there be cocktails?" 

"On the moon," promises the Doctor solemnly, and remembers when they had a lifetime in front of them. 

Clara laughs, swaying slightly to the music that still drifts up from below. 

He looks at her then bites his lip, steeling himself. "We could still do it. We could run away." He means it, too, in some far off part of his mind where none of the last years have happened.

She smiles, like his rash proposal amuses her. "No," she says, "we couldn't." 

(he feels like a child, told that he's too young and he'll understand when he's older)

(and he feels like an old, old man, stuck in the choices he's made and still not understanding anything at all)

"Were you always so young?" asks Clara, and the Doctor tries to smile.

Lips brushing against her temple, he half-whispers, "No. That was you."

"Is it greedy to want to live more than your lifetime?" wonders Clara, and though the Doctor shakes his head earnestly, she continues like he hasn't and answers her own question. "It is. Of course it is." Then, like an an afterthought: "I've lived longer than most." 

"You haven't," protests the Doctor weakly, "you haven't lived hardly anything at all."

"Oh, Doctor," she says fondly, like it's a term of endearment. 

For a few minutes, they move in a small circle, shuffling in a dance that's more of an embrace. He likes the song that's playing - a classic. He knew the woman who composed it, what, more than three hundred years ago? It's a nice piece. Hopeful. 

_How am I going to live without you_ , he thinks, and presses a kiss to Clara's temple. She leans into his touch, closing her eyes; he likes the lines that weather her skin. She is soft to touch, like a familiar book that's been read and read and still says something new. 

"Everything ends," she murmurs, more to herself than to him. He responds anyways.

"Nah," he says, falling slightly short of nonchalance, "not you. Never you." He stumbles over the sudden lump in his throat as the song finally comes to an end. Even with the sudden silence, he is almost inaudible. "We're going to live forever, you and me." 

_____

 

As luck would have it, this is when Things Get Bad.

They run from a family of Slitheen, and she falls. And she does not get back up. 

_Not like this_ , thinks the Doctor, and before he knows it, he doesn't think he'll ever think anything else. At night he watches the rise and fall of her chest and, when she pauses between breaths, he thinks that he can't breathe.

_____

 

With Clara leaving her bed at increasingly infrequent intervals, the job of storyteller falls once again to the Doctor. ( _It is alarmingly simple how quickly he goes back to those first three hundred years, to doing things alone)_

They demand a story about the boy made of stars, and the Doctor thinks for a long moment before beginning. 

“The boy made of stars,” he says, “was all alone.” 

“You didn't say once upon a time.” Interrupts a little boy – Barnaby? He's getting their names mixed up, now, and makes a note to ask someone. 

The Doctor manages a smile. “This story doesn't start with once upon a time. There's lots of onces, in this story, and lots of times, too. It wasn't that simple, you see.” Now he's got them interested. “Where was I? Ah – The boy made of stars was lonely. Very lonely. And then, one day, he met a girl who was the sun. Finally, someone who could shine as bright as him! He asked her to run away with him, but before they could take off, the sun set and she was gone.” 

“And so he was lonely again, and he kept on running. But then, a while later, he met a girl who was the moon. Finally, he thought, someone who could share his light. So he asked her to run with him, but before they could go, she flew off into space, far away from him. He looked for her everywhere, all across space and all through the galaxies. He searched and he searched, this boy made of stars, and he was alone again. Or so he thought.” The children stare at him, wide eyed. The Doctor can't help but laugh at their expressions. 

“He wasn't alone, you know. All that time he was searching for the girl who was the sun and moon, she'd been all around him. She'd been there since the very beginning, and they'd been tied together without even knowing it; the boy who was made of stars and the girl who was the sky.”

He can't quite bring himself to say 'the end'. 

A particularly young girl raises her hand eagerly, waving to get his attention. “Did he ever find her, Doctor?” 

The Doctor looks at her, then across the hall, at the door to where Clara is. It seems a great distance, from where he is to where she is. “Yes,” he says, after a moment of hesitation. “Yes, I do believe they found each other after all.”

_____

 

He manages to become hopeful, and then she takes a turn for the worst. No one finds it particularly surprising – she's lived longer than almost any of the residents of Christmas. It doesn't feel long to the Doctor. He tells them that she's not ready to die yet, but none of them seem to pay him much attention. Clara holds his hand and sleeps and breathes more slowly than he'd care to admit.

And so he visits the crack in the wall. 

“Save her,” he says. “You need to save her.” The room is still silent, and the Doctor moves forward until he is directly in front of the crack. He wonders whether or not he is above begging. 

He decides he isn't. “Please,” he says, “they told me she doesn't have more than a day. Please. You've got all the technology, you've got everything I don't. Save her. Please...”

The crack in the wall does not respond. No “prisoner zero has escaped”, no “change it”, nothing. 

And it's something akin to a knife, this sudden realization that he is entirely helpless in the face of something he's avoided his entire life. Because this – this waiting for death to come when he pleases, this is not how the Doctor does it. He runs from death, pulling his friends along until they slip out of his grasp and fade away in a horribly shining moment. Death is supposed to be sudden, he thinks. Death isn't supposed to bide it's time. 

And it feels like Romana and Rose and River and a million losses all at once and the Doctor has loved before but he doesn't think that the Eleventh ever has, not till this very moment when he finds himself faced with losing _her._ And his voice breaks when he presses his forehead against the glowing fault line. "This," he says slowly, "is why."

And he tells the empty room and the crack in the universe why he loves her, what he's never been able to tell her. He speaks of crash landings and lights at windows and the most important leaf in the universe; and of time streams and big red buttons and someone knowing who he is. And when he can't speak anymore, he thinks about the feeling of her hand in his and the smell of souffles and _just this once, just for the hell of it, Let Me Save You._

“More than anything,” says the Doctor. “That is why. She means... she is... more than anything to me.”

And his hands are shaking and the room is silent. 

And then:

"There is," comes a whisper from within the light, "a way."

And these are the Time Lords and he is the Doctor and god knows they have an ulterior motive but he can't bring himself to care. "Save her," he pleads, and the crack glows brighter and brighter and, funnily enough, his last thought is of the boy made of stars.

_____

 

This is what he says: "Clara Oswald. I will never send you away again." 

This is the strange part: He means it. 

She goes to get the turkey and all of a sudden, the Doctor finds himself face to face with himself. 

"Wha-" he begins, but this other Doctor claps a hand over his mouth. 

"We haven't got time, so you've got to listen and listen well." It's still him, this eleventh body, but older. The Doctor looks at the TARDIS console, wondering if there's been a leak of the timey wimey stuff. His hand drifts to the sonic in his pocket, and the other Doctor rolls his eyes. "It's about Clara." 

(This is when he knows that something is dreadfully wrong)

He can still hear Clara talking happily from below, and the other Doctor speaks, low and intense. "We can't bring her to Trenzalore - don't interrupt - because if we do she will die and we will be entirely powerless to stop it."

"She'll die anywhere," argues the Doctor, "she's human." _She's my human,_ he thinks, and he catches a glimpse of the top of Clara's head as she climbs the stairs. He opens his mouth to speak to her, but the other Doctor shoves him into the back hall and out of sight before he can react. 

"Not because of you she won't." The other Doctor hisses next to his ear. "She can't have a life with us, not one worth living, but we can give her one that is. After all of the lives we've taken, Doctor; all the ones she's given for us, don't you think we owe her this one?" 

The Doctor pushes his older self aside and rushes back into the TARDIS console room just in time to see the doors swing closed. Clara is gone.

"Leave her," says the other Doctor, "and save her. Please-" He stops, and the two Doctors look at each other for a long moment. 

( _Everything in him screams to go after her_ ) It's sort of funny - all that he thinks, at this moment, is how just once, he wanted to be selfish enough to have a life with someone. No, he corrects himself, not someone. Her. Only her. 

Clara. 

"I promised," he says weakly, before pushing a button and leaving her behind forever. 

The ship's engines sound as they travel back to Trenzalore, and one Doctor looks at the other feeling entirely dumbfounded. He blinks, and in that fraction of a second the older Doctor is gone and the Doctor thinks that he catches sight of a horribly familiar crack in the universe. 

And, within in the space of less than a minute, he is left to pick up the remains of an almost-future and wonder how exactly he's managed to end up so entirely alone.

_____

 

She lies on her back, staring listlessly at the wall. For a horrible moment, the Doctor thinks that she's already dead; then her fingers twitch ever so slightly, and she meets his eyes. 

"Doctor-" 

He is already at her bedside, kneeling beside her and taking her hand in both of his. "I'm here, Clara." (like that means anything, now)

"I'm so tired, Doctor." She murmurs faintly. "I'm so tired." 

"I know," he says. 

and he wonders if she'll hate him, in the world where he leaves her

(and it's a miracle that she doesn't already)

"Tired," she sighs, and her eyes flutter closed.

The Doctor traces the lines in her hand with his thumb. "You aren't supposed to die." His voice breaks, and he laughs bitterly. "You've died loads of times, of course. I should probably be used to it by now." 

Somewhere in time, he thinks, he will never see Clara again. This thought is almost enough to make him run back to the crack in the wall ( _in the universe_ ) and beg to take back his message and let her be here with him-

but then he remembers that, somewhere in time, she does not die because of him. Somewhere, she has a chance. She'll be happy. 

And he wonders if she'll hate him, in the world where he leaves her.

Her breaths are shallow, now, and growing less frequent. And, very suddenly, the Doctor is filled with anger at the absolute unfairness of it all. Watching her die or sending her away - that's not a choice at all.

"I'm sorry," he says, and isn't sure whether he's apologizing for seeing her die or for saving her. "I changed the past, and I'm sorry, and you are not going to die, not like this." 

Clara eyes fly open, and their eyes meet for a second and she _knows_. "You didn't-"

"You'll live," pleads the Doctor, "without me, yes, but you will live; just this once, I can save you." Struggling to sit up, Clara opens her mouth to argue, and her hand shakes in his. He cuts her off. "I had to, Clara, don't you see? It's the only way. Like none of this ever happened." 

She has tears in her eyes, and lets herself sink back into the pillows. "Chin boy," she gasps, "what have you done?" 

"You'll be young," he says desperately, smoothing her hair back over her forehead. "You'll be young, and you'll have your whole life ahead of you. You could get married-" she flinches away from him sharply. "-You could go traveling, you could save someone's life, you could do anything at all because you will have a lifetime of choices." He brushes the tears from under her eyes, and keeps her hand on her cheek. "Clara..."

She does not move, and he waits, but she still does not move and with a dawning sense of dread, the Doctor holds her hand more tightly than before

and she still doesn't move

_This will never have happened,_ the Doctor reminds himself.

and he wonders if she will hate him, in the world where he leaves her

"I'm sorry," he says again, pressing a kiss to her fingertips, "I'm sorry."

and still, after all this time (which, upon further thought, was not much time at all), she is so beautiful.

_____

 

And, alone in his TARDIS, flying back to Trenzalore, the Doctor lets himself wonder about what might have happened, had he not sent her away. (and it has been a long time since the future has thrilled him, but he thinks that this one might have)

_Clara,_ he thinks, and it's like a physical ache to know that she thinks he doesn't want her; that he'll never see her again; that he's over here and she's a billion light years away and things couldn't be more absolutely wrong. 

He wouldn't have minded it. Being old, that is. Not with her. 

Not with her. 

_Clara_ , he thinks, as if she can hear him, and wishes that he could hurry up and die already. 

_____

 

This is what he says: "Clara Oswald. I will never send you away again." 

This is the strange part: He means it.

And this is the tragedy of it all: 

The Doctor lies. 

 

 


End file.
